As the world edges closer to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal deadline, progress on achieving Zero Hunger has stalled, according to the FAO’s 2024 flagship report, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World.

As many as 757 million people may have experienced hunger in 2023, while 2.33 billion experienced moderate or severe food insecurity. In 2022, as many as 2.8 billion were not able to afford a nutritious diet. The situation is particularly dire in low-income countries, especially for rural populations, women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples.

The number of people facing hunger around the world has increased by more than 122 million from 2019, according to the newly released annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report, , a joint publication by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNICEF, World Food Programme, and World Health Organization (WHO).

In 2019, an estimated 690 million people around the world were undernourished, and nearly 3 billion people were unable to afford healthy diets. The world has the potential to make significant progress in reducing those numbers by 2030 – with the right investments.

Our window of opportunity for achieving SDG 2 — eradicating hunger and malnutrition and ensuring access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food for all by 2030 — is closing rapidly. However, far from moving closer to that goal, the world has seen a resurgence of hunger and food insecurity.

According the 2021 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) Report released today, we are not on track to achieve the goal of ending global hunger by 2030 (SDG2). The compounding effects of COVID-19 coupled with drivers of food insecurity – conflicts, climate change and economic slowdowns and downturns – have further swerved us from the path.